


Growing Pains

by chillgamesh_the_swing



Category: SOMA (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Technobabble, Transhumanism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 11:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30054723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillgamesh_the_swing/pseuds/chillgamesh_the_swing
Summary: (never once in the history of life on earth has evolution been easy)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

> i've been sitting on like 3 partial chapters of this for months and i finally decided to bite it and start posting them. because another long ambitious project is exactly what i need. CW canon-typical gore and mild suicidal ideation, it's soma there's gonna be bodies and existential crises. warnings will be updated as appropriate.

When Cath goes dark, Simon freezes. "No," he whispers. "Please don't leave me alone..." He didn't mean the things he said, he was angry, he wasn't thinking, he had been so afraid and so full of hope for one glorious instant that he didn't know what to do with himself when the moment had passed and this ugly nightmare was still there. What the hell is he supposed to do now?

The omnitool is blank, and the ghost of his stomach twists into an icy knot. The pilot seat interface shows a blinking error message. _LOST CONNECTION - PLEASE REINSERT OMNITOOL._ If her chip fried from stress, and it's his fault--

He feels cheated, being the one left behind, but like Cath had said, he can't really blame that on her. Now he mostly just hopes she'll be okay. Heaving himself out of the pilot seat, he disconnects the omnitool from the monitor and looks around. The space gun stretches up into the darkness above the dome. The Ark had made it to space, right? The computer confirmed that, before it blew out. He shakes his head. At least they did what they'd come to do.

He turns the omnitool over and over in his hands. Can he even fix Cath? He hasn't been able to save anyone else down here. He can still hear Semken's groaning as he pulled apart the WAU cables feeding his circuits, Amy's labored breathing through a set of lungs that were outside her chest. They'd all been caught by this monumental chain of accidents that first ended the world and then ended the world after that. None of them deserved what happened to them. There wasn't a reason.

Sarah Lindwall, the last living human, chose to die when she finished her part of the work, when he retrieved the Ark from her to take it to Phi. She didn't think what was left of her life was worth the pain. His part is done now, too. Everything else is gravy, he figures. He can take death when it comes.

But at least he doesn't hurt for now. So no rush. He clips the omnitool into the power suit's belt and plods back down the catwalk to the door.

"Dammit." He should have known nothing would ever be easy. His busted omnitool can't reopen the airlock. He thumps his fist on it once in frustration. "Should've hung on to that other chip," he mutters, turning back toward the base of the gun. Is it worth it to strike out for Tau? Hope he can get back inside, evade Yoshida, and somehow figure out how to repair Cath? It's a hell of a long shot. He barely made it here in the first place without getting ripped apart by viperfish.

He kicks a pebble off the metal stairs. It ricochets onto a landing below with a rattle. He glances down. There's a crumpled metal panel pulled away from the wall, and a toolbox. "Huh. Manual override or something?"

It's not a manual override, but it is a maintenance tunnel. It probably doesn't extend into the station proper, without another airlock, but it's better than being outside, just in case any wildlife decides to brave the lights of the dome. Simon shoves the toolbox through the hatch and crawls in. These things seem more cramped than they used to, but then, he's bigger than he used to be.

The tunnel opens into a shallow cavern where he can at least sit, if not stand upright. He plunks down on the grating floor and adjusts his flashlight. No evidence of WAU activity in here, at least yet. There's a few bundles of insulated cable, an assortment of dials and switches, a fuse box. A red light blinks in the corner of his vision. 10% BATTERY REMAINING.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." After everything that's happened today, Simon can't even muster the energy to panic over this development, which is probably for the best. He needs a WAU port, or something-- the electromagnetic surge must have been shoring up his power supply all along. But there's nothing here. It's not like he can change out his battery pack. This is ridiculous, it's bullshit, all this way and he's going to run out of power at the bottom of the abyss?

Simon decides he might not be ready for death just yet.

He looks over the fuse box, flips a lever experimentally. An indicator light flickers off and back on. He recognizes the kind of plunger switch that the manual overrides at Omicron used, and he swivels it and yanks. The metal cylinder rips out of its housing with a shower of electricity that arcs through the water, plunging down the metal nerves twined through his arm, and flooding his optics with blinding light. "Shit!"

When the burst subsides, he finds himself crumpled forward against the wall. "Mom did say never stick your finger in a socket," he gasps, still reeling. Simon catches his not-quite-breath and pushes himself upright again. His mind is clear and he feels oddly full. He can almost hear Cath explaining how his mind can't process his new senses and autonomic functions without mapping them onto the kind of feedback it expects from an organic body. Almost. He blinks (does he?) and peers around the cavern. The indicators around the fuse box are flickering erratically, casting a sickening light through the water.

Simon pulls the omnitool from his belt and glares at it with renewed determination. There isn't an override for the airlock, but maybe he doesn't need one. He picks the smallest screwdriver out of the the toolbox, and gingerly prods the contact port where the cortex chip is connected. It's tightly inserted, and he doesn't want to be careless and damage the chip further. He manages to catch the flat edge of the screwdriver between the chip and its casing, and cautiously, gradually, wiggles it free.

Nothing seems to happen. He sets the chip carefully down in front of him and flips the omnitool over. There's a small round switch labeled _SAFETY RESET_ in tiny raised print. He can't get it to move with the suit's thick fingers, so he uses the screwdriver to push it down and back up.

The omnitool flickers to life, a red-and-green HAIMATSU logo appearing on its display. "Please wait," the musical AI voice drifts from its tiny speaker. "Omnitool is recovering from software reset. Please wait." It goes dark for another moment, then a few notes chime and the default interface appears, the one he hasn't seen since... before Cath, but it's _on_ and it's _working_ and maybe he can get out of this mess after all. Simon looks down at the cortex chip on the paneled floor, and picks it up, sliding it gently into a pouch on the suit's tool belt. He ducks back into the tunnel and makes his way outside.

This time, the door responds immediately, the heavy locking mechanisms spinning themselves loose and pneumatic hinges hissing open. Simon steps into the airlock, glancing back as he swipes the omnitool over the security pad. The outer door closes, latching again with a muffled thunk. The water around him rushes down the drains under the floor grate, and the interior door opens.


End file.
